New Delhi railway station redevelopment: More than 30 consultants participate in pre-bid meet

In the midst of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) conducted an online pre-bid meeting for the tender floated for selection of a consultancy firm for redevelopment of the New Delhi Railway station. More than 30 consultancy firms participated and include international and national consultancy firms such as Italferr (Australia), Louis Berger, Hafeez Contractor, Tata Consulting and CP Kukreja.

On March 11, RLDA had floated the RFP (request for proposal) inviting bids from suitable bidders for the selection of consultancy firm providing consultancy services for feasibility study, detailed master planning, urban designing, engineering and preparation of detailed project report (DPR) for re-development of New Delhi railway station. The tender as of now is scheduled to be awarded by first week of June.

“The re-development of the New Delhi railway station is one of our most ambitious projects. We successfully conducted an online pre bid meeting for the tender floated for selection of a consultancy firm in which more than 30 consultancy firms participated. We are committed to ensuring seamless operations by extensive use of digital technology and it was a great experience to have first pre-bid meeting through video conferencing. We will be opening the online tenders shortly,” Ved Parkash Dudeja, Vice Chairman, Rail Land Development Authority said.

RLDA, an organisation under the Ministry of Railways, is hoping to generate investments of close to Rs 7,000 crore, of which Rs 5,000 crore would be spent on redevelopment of the station and railway offices.

The Indian Railways is considering monetising land parcels located near New Delhi railway station by developing the vacant land for commercial use. RLDA had floated the Request for Proposal on March 11 and expects to award the tender by June and appoint a consultant for the project.

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Once the redevelopment project is completed, Delhi’s Connaught Place area may get at least 2.5 million sq ft of new commercial space, perhaps the most expensive piece of real estate.

The entire area will be developed across an area of about 8 million sq ft and the developer who is finally selected would be allowed to build commercial spaces on about 2.5 million sq ft.

“This project is to be executed with the private sector partnership by leveraging the real estate development potential in the air space above the station and on railway land around the station. The key objective of this project is to provide superior passenger services to railway passengers at stations and transform these stations into iconic standard-bearers of the cities following the PPP model,” said Dudeja.

Indian Railways had entrusted New Delhi railway station to RLDA to redevelop it with state of the art architecture, facilities and public amenities. This project is to be executed with private sector partnership by leveraging the real estate development potential in the air space above the station and on land around the station. Key objective of this project is to provide modern passenger services for railway passengers following the PPP model.

The consultant, who comes on board, would be expected to conduct a feasibility study, prepare a detailed master plan and project report for redevelopment of the station within six months.

The master plan would provide details like land use, architecture, urban design and associated parameters for development of the railway station into a world class passenger terminal. The adjoining railway colonies too would be part of the Master Plan.

The plan would have to consider the urban land use, development norms and Floor Area Ratio and would have to be drawn up keeping in mind existing and future traffic patterns in the area.